Seasons of Rain
by Kay Taylor
Summary: BillCharlieOC, sequel to Every You And Every Me and Finite Incantatum. Unfinished business in the Carpathians. In which loose ends are tied up. Part three of three.


Bill  
  
Bill had thought of a great many things he wanted to say to Iestyn Davies, once he got him alone. Things about Charlie, mostly, but also about the _looks_ he kept giving Bill, as though he was laughing at Bill out of the corner of his face. Bill had never managed to catch Iestyn doing it - laughing at him, that was - but he was sure it had to be there. After all, Iestyn had managed to make Charlie forget him - _no, Charlie had forgotten everything, that isn't entirely fair_, the sensible part of Bill's mind protested, but Bill's misery shoved it aside and carried on - and had spent the better part of several months here in the Carpathians with Charlie, while Bill had been sitting in Hogsmeade watching the rain with his instantly-forgettable girlfriend and wondering whether Hermione had been good in bed.   
  
It was enough to drive anyone mad, and especially Bill. Because he had to sleep next to Charlie every night, arms wrapped tightly around his brother's warm chest, face pressed into the hollow of his shoulderblades where the scars were thickest, and think about how cold the mountains were in winter, and how the fur-lined blankets felt against his legs, and then his mind would shift treacherously to the thought of how Iestyn would have kept Charlie warm. Stubble grazing against thighs, that red mouth opening wetly between Charlie's legs, calloused fingers running up Charlie's neck.   
  
Bill could never sleep, once he'd thought about that.  
  
But when he finally did get Iestyn alone - several days after he arrived, once all the snow had melted and the rain had started up in earnest, great hammering sheets of it - it didn't go the way he expected it to. Iestyn's eyes were green in the darkness of the watchtower, and his hands were quick as he bent over the rope he was mending. He smelled of dragons, _like Charlie smelled_, Bill thought desperately, all mud and sweat and tangy green scale-oil.   
  
You lied to Charlie, Bill said, and it was the first thing that came into his head, and not really what he'd planned to say at all. His fists bunched up in his pockets. You lied to him, so you could - fuck him.  
  
Iestyn didn't look up from his work. Well, really, could you blame me?  
  
And then tensed, as though expecting the blow.  
  
Bill had thought he'd be angry. He'd expected shouting, recriminations, and had come up here in the wind and the rain expecting to have the living daylights beaten out of him, because curse breaking doesn't get you hauling timber and twenty stone of dragon hatchling around in all weathers. He hadn't expected to stand there, rain hammering, watching Iestyn's dirty hands work through the rope. Or take two steps forward, bend down, and suddenly feel the warmth of Iestyn's mouth on his.  
  
Charlie  
  
Bill is watching Iestyn again. Iestyn is sitting in a patch of sunlight, cleaning the scales of hatchling number six - Bruiser, we've called him, because he grew so much faster than the others, and he can break your arm with his tail. Bill is standing by the door of the watchtower, holding a cup of tea, his hair loose and flying around him in the mountain wind. He never used to let his hair down like that, but we've all changed a lot. Since Wales, since the Death Eater Wars, since the first few days of the New Peace, when I woke up in St Mungo's and could only remember my name after insistent prompting from the mediwitches. Even so, it sounded wrong on my lips - Char-lie, somehow clumsy and rough, like the scars on my arms and shoulders and back. Bill sounded better, because it was short, somehow lighter, like his kisses.  
  
Bill is brushing the hair out of his eyes. Iestyn swears and puts a finger in his mouth, where he's cut himself on the sharp hind-scales. I watch him, and I know that his hands are dirty and slippery with the smooth slick oil that dragons make, and that his finger will taste sharp and bitter and somehow smoky, and that his mouth will be warm and smooth and his lips will taste of mint and Muggle cigarettes, cadged from the Romanian villagers. I know that he'll suck, running his tongue over the pad of his finger, and I know that when he did that to me I melted. Bill doesn't know, but I can tell he guesses, because he shifts his weight uncomfortably from foot to foot, leaning against the doorframe, and the hair whips into his face, but not quickly enough to hide the look he flashes my way.   
  
Later.  
  
It's the first time I've been with Iestyn - alone - since I knew. Since I found out that he'd known about Bill, and had tried to tell me. I took it on trust that he tried to tell me, because he looked so miserable. And now, walking through the rain to the North Tower, the lanterns swinging from our shoulders with heavy, deliberate clunking sounds, I still believe it. I know that Bill thinks Iestyn lied, and I know that Bill thinks Iestyn cheated, it's there in the way that he clasps my hand when Iestyn walks past us. It's there in the way we make love, now, with Bill pinning me down and clasping hold of my shoulders and refusing to let go, heavy weight against the bed, moving slowly. But still, I trust Iestyn, because there's too much history in it not to.  
  
We stop. Iestyn says, We should probably shore up the timber here, we can't carry it all the way, and I nod, the rain dripping onto my face. The boards are heavy and slippery with the constant rain and damp, and it takes all my strength to balance one on my shoulder, hefting it to the side and wincing as it touches the scars. Iestyn notices, and takes the weight of the plank himself, sliding his hand between the mossy wood and my shoulder.   
  
Does it hurt? he says, and I can hear the - something - in his voice. I haven't heard it for a while, but I try to shrug, and my scars flare up in a spasm of pain. I stagger, slip on the wet rocks.   
Iestyn is there in a moment. He hesitates, reaches out, touches my face. I'm cold, drenched to the skin, but Iestyn's hands are warm as they trace the outline of my jaw, as slowly and deliberate as if he were setting a hatchling's broken bones. He looks away, shuddering, and it's hurting him almost as much as it's hurting me.  
  
Charlie -  
  
Iestyn  
  
Iestyn doesn't really know how to react when Bill kisses him. His first instinct is _go limp_, but a few seconds later he realises that's him thinking of Bill as an angry dragon, a pissed-off brood mother who's seen him handling her hatchlings. Once he unfreezes, Bill's hands are in his hair and Bill's mouth is rough on his, and Bill tastes of that horrible tea he drinks, and Iestyn has a moment to think of Charlie tasting Iestyn tasting of Bill, before Bill pulls away and scrabbles to get up again. He looks confused, and _too damn right_, Iestyn thinks, and the rain is still showing no signs of abating.  
  
Well, that was unexpected, Iestyn mutters, carefully not looking at Bill. His hands are shaking, and it's ridiculous, and he wishes he had Bill's hair to hide behind, those long cacading sheets of red, all damp and smelling of rain.   
  
Step one: point and counterpoint  
  
There are no soundproofing wards anywhere in the mountains. For one thing, there's no need: Iestyn lives on the other side of the cliff, and Gwillym and Rhiannon live over the West Peak, and even in summer the wind at nights is loud enough to drown out the sound of someone shouting at the top of their voice. For another, it's dangerous: if you can't hear the dragons, they could have taken against you and be coiled around your hut, drawing breath to burn your house down with you still inside. For a third, magic around the dragons is hazardous even if they're in the most benevolent of moods. It... upsets them, Charlie had explained to Bill on the first night, sitting wrapped in furs and blankets as Bill had padded around the hut barefoot, about to put wards in place. It _really_ upsets them. We can just about get away with flame-proofing, and even that's pushing it.  
  
Bill had sighed, and slipped into bed. It feels strange without the wards, he'd said, shamefaced. Because the memories of their childhood were the first things to come back, and both Bill and Charlie can remember every furtive coupling in the attic, beds pushed together, wards and locked doors and Bill's hand over Charlie's mouth. The memories of not needing wards - of a master bedroom, a double bed and their dog curled up at the foot of the bedstead - are slower to emerge, bit by bit.   
  
There are no wards in the mountains, and some people have joked that it's because the dragon provosts are all brothers (and sisters, Rhiannon would remind them), and there are no locked doors in a family. With a wink and a nudge, and Charlie certainly remembers how Iestyn would come to his door of an evening, with snow cresting his hair and an insociant, lazy smile, sliding under the covers without unlacing his boots. And Iestyn remembers those days, remembers them so much that he's kneeling outside the window, keeping his face hidden in the shadows as Bill kisses Charlie in the candlelight.  
  
A slow kiss, deliberate. Hands on his neck. Hands on his shoulders. And Charlie leans into it, opening his mouth, his sunburned arms going up around Bill's neck and pulling him close, their legs tangling in the blankets. Bill is unbuttoning his trousers, hasty, fumbling.   
  
Iestyn draws his coat further around him in the cold of a March wind, listening to the slow keening of the dragons overhead, watching the slow slide of Charlie's hand, down Bill's chest, dipping into his trousers. Knuckles. Squeezing, and Bill arches his back and Iestyn can see Bill's lips moving, though there's nothing to be heard over the wind.  
  
Iestyn's heart is hammering in his throat, and he shifts position.   
The mountains before Spring are no place to be sitting on the cold rock, sitting in a fur-lined coat and rough boots, leather dragon-gauntlets and a penknife tied around his neck, and _nothing else_. Bill is wriggling out of his trousers, and the blankets have shifted enough for Iestyn to be able to see Charlie, glowing golden in the candlelight, his cock rising from between his thighs, red and - wet.   
  
Iestyn rests his forehead against the windowsill, a hand stealing down between his own thighs. He'd thought that the wind would make this impossible, the cold and the light spattering of rain, but he's almost painfully hard. He remembers coming to Charlie in the winter nights, and starts to rub himself, watching Bill slide down the blankets until the red hair is covering Charlie's chest and stomach, soft motion catching the light as Charlie's lips part, wordlessly.  
  
Step two: cadence  
  
You were watching us last night, Charlie says in a low voice, not looking up. He doesn't want to meet Iestyn's eyes, doesn't want to go through the tedious motions of denial and apology, recrimination and anger. I've lived in these mountains all my life. I'm not fucking stupid.  
  
The snow had started to fall, silent as sleep itself. None of them had noticed it. But tracks led away from Charlie's window, and none to it; a small bush of tamped-down heather; and Charlie could have sworn that he heard someone cry out, just once, as he scaled the heights back down from where Bill's lips and hands and cock had taken him.   
  
Iestyn doesn't say anything. And when he does, it's in a small voice, like a child who knows he's done something wrong.  
  
Charlie -  
  
  
  
A sigh. I won't lie to you.  
  
That's a change, then, Charlie says calmly, and regrets it the second the words have left his mouth. He can hear Iestyn take a sharp breath, let it out, ragged.  
  
Charlie, you know I didn't mean to hurt you.  
  
Charlie turns to look at him, then, and his voice shakes despite himself. Didn't mean to _hurt_ me? What'd you think you were doing? If it weren't for you -  
  
If it wasn't for me, you wouldn't have gone back to Bill and you know it! Iestyn bursts out, winding his hands angrily in the cuffs of his over-large shirt. If it wasn't for me, you'd be shacked up with some -  
  
  
  
  
  
A girl that wouldn't watch through the windows when my brother and I _wanted a little privacy_?  
  
Iestyn sneers. A little privacy? That's not what it looked like to me, Charlie, because if the wind wasn't so high you'd have screamed the whole mountain down.  
  
Charlie finally throws down the birch-bark, stands up. It wasn't as though you were quiet yourself, he says. Do you have to spoil everything?  
  
Iestyn sucks in a deep breath, runs his fingers down the side of Charlie's face. I've never spoiled anything for you, Char, and you know it. Charlie doesn't move, and Iestyn presses himself closer, some wild light in his eyes. Just kept it safe - (he moves around to Charlie's front, leaning in close enough for Charlie to smell smoke on his breath, deep and musky) until it was wanted - (he puts his hand on Charlie's shoulder, and it's heavy and warm even through the ragged T-shirt, and Charlie tries hard not to let himself wander for a moment to a place where Iestyn has that hand between his legs) and let it go, Iestyn finishes, his voice barely a whisper. With love.  
  
He looks up, and Charlie doesn't know why he's surprised to see tears in those so-often-dangerous green eyes. Charlie's anger has long since evaporated, and they hold still, breathing in. And out. In. And out. Charlie puts out his hand, running it down Iestyn's jawline, and Iestyn leans into the touch.  
  
Well, now, Iestyn says, and the glint comes back into his eyes. Are you really sure I _spoiled_ it, Char? Slowly, deliberately, he presses his hips into Charlie's, hardness meeting hardness. Charlie gasps, heat flooding to his face, and Iestyn chuckles, low and throaty. Are you really sure it wasn't an improvement, Char?  
  
Charlie grabs Iestyn; kisses him, lets him go, and then kisses him again, more thoroughly. Iestyn winds his hands in Charlie's hair, greedily, and they fall back against the side of the watchtower, hands running up under shirts and down backs and making Iestyn moan and lean into Charlie. Hips locking. Charlie setting a rhythm, Iestyn finding it, losing it again as Charlie pulls open the buttons of Iestyn's shirt, rubs the flat of his hand against Iestyn's nipples.   
  
Iestyn almost cries out, but Charlie's other hand is over his mouth. Instead, he scrabbles at Charlie's hipbones, locking them into a faster, inexorable rhythm. Charlie tries to breathe, and finds he can't. Up and down and up and Iestyn's mouth is on his neck, biting and sucking, and down and up and Charlie's hand grabs Iestyn's shoulders, pulling him closer.   
  
A gasp, and Iestyn spasms against Charlie, almost dislocating his shoulder. Iestyn's hot breath on Charlie's ear pushes him over, and he loses his balance, falling back in a tangle of arms and legs and sweaty, rain-dampened hair. From nowhere, a shower has sprung up, and the rain beats its harsh staccato on the floorboards.  
  
Rain drips off Charlie's nose, into his face. He sighs.  
  
Do you think it's ever going to stop raining? Iestyn asks quietly.  
  
Step three: exposition  
  
Bill isn't entirely sure at what point strip poker sounded like a good idea. True, it had been raining for what seemed like three days straight, and Charlie was almost bouncing off the walls with boredom, but he'd heard enough about the dragon provosts, and the mountains in winter, to be entirely suspicious when Iestyn Davies turned up with a bottle of cheap firewhiskey and a mischievous grin. The same Iestyn Davies, in fact, that had been turning up at the door of this hut, or one very much like it, since his baby brother had been eighteen. The very same Iestyn Davies that Bill had kissed several days before, and fallen to the floor with, and rubbed his hands raw and red on the wet green boards of the watchtower room.   
  
Bill isn't entirely sure who had turned out to be worse at poker, Iestyn or Charlie. True, Bill had been the studious one at school - not that they'd been at school with Iestyn, but Bill only had to take one look at those laughing Welsh eyes to be sure that he'd been no Ravenclaw - but he hadn't expected his brother and Iestyn (his brother's lover? his lover's brother? Bill was a little unclear on this point, and the firewhiskey wasn't helping) to be so abysmally bad at it. So he'd never expected to be sitting on the bed, fully-clothed, as Iestyn sprawled on the rug wearing nothing but his socks, or Charlie sat cross-legged beside him wearing an invisible ring and a seductive smile.  
  
It's unfair that you haven't had to take anything off, Iestyn says, with a look in his eyes only half attributable to the alcohol.   
  
Charlie nods. He could be hiding cards up his sleeve, couldn't he?  
  
A look passes between them, and Bill desperately tries to ignore the heat in it, just as he's trying to ignore the - heat - that's curling up his body from seeing them lying naked together. Charlie's body is known, every single inch of it mapped and loved, freckles and scars alike. Iestyn's body is a foreign territory, and Bill takes another swallow of the firewhiskey to distract himself from the fact that the foreign territory is coming nearer - _much_ nearer - and Iestyn's groin is at head-height as he and Charlie wrestle Bill's shirt off him, tangling the sleeves behind his back. Bill shivers when it's off, and not from the cold.  
  
No cards at all, Charlie says, casting possessive eyes over his brother's chest.  
  
Iestyn pretends to look suspicious. Are you sure - he says, and then Iestyn's hands are on Bill's body, and it gets a little hard to think. Iestyn brushes against a nipple, against the cool silver of the nipple ring, and Bill opens his mouth to gasp just as Charlie's mouth comes down on his. It's wet and warm and tastes of spirits, and then Iestyn's mouth fastens gently around Bill's nipple and starts to suck, and Bill loses all ability to think right there in that second.  
  
Iestyn's hands go into Charlie's hair, and Charlie turns his head to Iestyn, kissing him long and slow, bending his head back so that Bill can see the muscles moving in Iestyn's throat. Bill makes a small noise, trying to sit up for a better view, and his head spins as Iestyn breaks away from Charlie and comes to sit on Bill's hips.  
  
What - Bill starts to ask.  
  
Do you really want to know? Charlie asks quietly, laying a kiss on his brother's collarbone.  
  
Not if it means you keep - _oh, keep doing that -_  
  
Iestyn raises an eyebrow. Definitely, too many clothes, he mumbles, and his hands go to Bill's belt. Bill raises his hips, and Charlie bites his ear, and Bill reaches out to Charlie and draws him down onto the bed as Iestyn eases him out of the last of his clothing, plundering Charlie's mouth with his tongue, feeling the warm hard length of Charlie pressed against his stomach.   
  
Ah, Charlie - Bill gasps. Then, a few moments later - Ah, _Iestyn_ -  
  
Just checking for cards, Iestyn says breathily. It's not that I don't trust you, you understand.  
  
Even through the haze of firewhiskey, the audacity makes Bill laugh. You don't trust _me_?  
  
Not if you don't carry on doing that to Charlie, no, Iestyn points out, with perfect reasonableness, and Bill turns back to his brother to find him flushed and hard enough to burst. Charlie's mouth is wet and desperate, and Bill pins him to the bed, feeling precome slick between their stomachs, finding new places on Charlie's neck to kiss and lick. Bill looks over his shoulder and Iestyn is watching them, head thrown back, one hand wrapped around his leaking cock. It'd be a crying shame to let it - go to waste -   
  
Charlie whimpers as Bill turns away, but it's a whimper that turns into a moan as Bill rediscovers the taste of Iestyn's mouth, a moan that turns into an Oh, _Bill_, as Bill learns the taste of Iestyn's cock, running his tongue over the hard aching length of it, making Iestyn fist his hands in Bill's hair and _pull_. Charlie's hands are busy between his legs, and when Bill looks back, dizzy with the taste of Iestyn and the wildness of his eyes, he sees one of Charlie's fingers disappearing inside himself, and he isn't sure whether the harsh guttural noise comes from Iestyn or him.   
  
Charlie - Iestyn moans, and there's a hand wrapped around Bill's cock, and he isn't sure whose it is, but he knows it's Charlie's neck that he's buried his face in, and his fingers are buried inside Charlie, making him keen and writhe and pant Bill's name. The hand is quick and confident, and there's hot breath against Bill's back, and he can feel Iestyn pressed between his legs, slippery with precome. Bill turns his head, trying to catch his breath, and Iestyn slides his fingers into Bill's mouth, and they taste of dragons. Slick, green, almost oily, and Bill thrusts harder, feeling Charlie spasm around him, warm and grasping.   
  
Bill, _please_, don't stop - Charlie moans, and then - Ah! There. _There_.  
  
Bill bites Iestyn's fingers, and Iestyn doesn't seem to mind. The hand on Bill's cock swipes its thumb over the head, building in rhythm, and Bill realises his throat is sore from gasping, and the room is spinning. Then there's warmth between Bill's legs, warm and wet at the meeting of his thighs, and Iestyn mutters, Ah, _Bill_, into the back of Bill's neck, and the hand on his cock clenches, and Charlie thrusts down hard on Bill's fingers, almost screaming.   
  
For a moment, all Bill can see is the candelight, casting shimmering shadows on the walls. Then he falls over the edge, coming harder than he ever thought possible, and Charlie is warm on his stomach, and gasping out words of love into the tangles of Bill's hair.  
  
Silence.  
  
Silence.  
  
I should think Gwillym and Rhiannon heard that over at West Peak, Char, Iestyn says, almost conversationally. Charlie grins, sated, and wraps his legs around Bill's waist.   
  
Iestyn seems to consider, and with a small sigh of effort, he curls himself up, head resting on Charlie's stomach.   
  
Maybe they don't get off on listening, Charlie murmurs, his eyes starting to close. Unlike some...  
  
Iestyn's hand goes into Bill's hair, winding it around his fingers. Bill takes Iestyn's hand, clasping it, and brings it to his lips.  
  
The rain hammers outside.


End file.
